Books with author Peter Lourie

Here is a fascinating day-by-day account of the author's 315 mile canoe trip down the Hudson River, from the Adirondack Mountains, where the river is born, to New York City's Battery Park, where it empties into the sea. Full-color photographs plus a simple and lively text give young readers the feel of shooting white water, gliding through the mountainous Hudson Highlands, and, finally plowing the busy waters off the shore of Manhattan. Throughout the trip Peter Lourie serves as a thoughtful and intrepid guide to one of America's great rivers.

In The Manatee Scientists, John Reynolds does an aerial count of manatees from the Florida sky; Lucy Keith spends a weekend rescuing manatees trapped in a dam in Senegal; and Fernando Rosas takes the author on an Amazonian boat trip, looking for a young manatee he released back into the wild, with emotional results. These scientists are working hard to save manatees: docile, large sea mammals who are eaten in some parts of the world, feared in others, and adored in still others. But factors such as human encroachment, disease, environmental hazards, and being hunted are causing their numbers to decline: they are an endangered species, in need of help.

In 1804 Lewis and Clark and a small band of adventurers calling themselves the Corps of Discovery set off on a great journey into the unknown. Along the way they met a young Shoshone woman who would make an invaluable contribution to the expedition. With a baby strapped on her back, Sacagawea negotiated with native peoples, helped the expedition survive when food was scarce, and, ultimately, contributed to leading this small band of intruders on a trip lasting more than two years through the Indian land to the Pacific Ocean. One summer, Peter Lourie and his family traveled in the footsteps of Sacagawea to learn about her from the native peoples who now live along her trail. As the Louries traveled the historic route, they grew closer to American history and to understanding the woman who contributed so much to the early expansion of the United States.

More than a thousand years ago, a people known as the Anasazi lived in the North American Southwest. They produced pottery, baskets, and cloth, and engaged in trade. They were master builders and erected magnificent structures. Then in the last half of the thirteenth century, something mysterious happened. The Anasazi walked away from their world and vanished into history. But why? One place to look for clues is in northwestern New Mexico, among the ruins of Chaco Canyon. The discovery of a network of roads leading to the canyon have led some archaeologists to believe that this may have been the very center of the Anasazi universe. But what drew them to this hot, dry canyon?

Not all scientists live where they work, harvest their own subjects, or use information passed down from generation after generation of Inupiaq Eskimos to help learn about the bowhead whale. Arctic whale scientist Craig George is the son of children’s author Jean Craighead George, and out on the ice with the whales and the whalers in Barrow, Alaska is where this Arctic whale scientist works. He has studied them for nearly thirty years and the mysteries these creatures hold never fail to amaze him. Join Craig at the top of the world, where the days and nights are long, the people full of stories, and the bowhead whale is at the center of it all

In 1804, Lewis and Clark and a band of adventurers called the Corps of Discovery embarked on one of the great expeditions in history. President Thomas Jefferson purchased from France an 800,000-square-mile region called the Louisiana Territory--which doubled the size of the United Sates--then commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore it. Two hundred years later, Peter Lourie, along with three friends, follows Lewis and Clarks' path up the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska to Three Forks, Montana, where they meet the headwaters of the Missouri River. In between, there are dramatic sights: the Missouri Plateau, where Lewis saw thousands of buffalo; the gravesite of Sitting Bull; the breathtaking White Cliffs of Montana, and much more. Through a lively text and beautiful photographs, Peter Lourie invites us to travel up the Missouri River and imagine what Lewis and Clark might have seen as they ventured into this new world.